Well... That was an eye opener... I lasted ten minutes. The very first group of four casters in one encounter wiped me completely out. I'm sure I could have killed them with a fieminamor, but I wanted to see how fast the melee could burn them down. Three rounds of Swing to Kill on both meleers = 6 dead casters... in that time there were two Fehalito spells that went off and killed my Sage (he was fully buffed) over half the casters were still standing and it only took one more Fehalito and my whole team was down. For reference, my Sam has 36 agi, and my Ranger has 33... Ranger with a Balmung, Sam with a Axe of Mortokgor. There just isn't enough time for the melee to kill that many casters. So, a larger group of Toons would be better for, if nothing else, more AOE spells. I run a usual group of six Toons to have a wide array of options in a pinch. Six may be overkill, but I can usually ensure all six get double leveled and have enough AOE spells to get back to the surface without climbing.
John, I think you have definitely found a way to make Sages and Rangers useful again. Sammys still rule melee, but five groups of caster is just too much to not use spells.
Hellion
Playing on a AT&T Samsung Infuse (SAMSUNG-SGH-I997) Firmware 2.2.1
1.3.4
(V 2.2g) Dwarf, Human, Gnoll, Hobbit and Elf Rangers all created
200 hours and loving every minute of it !!!